The age of sinecures is dead and gone. Lost too are those sunny days, when artists were signed by world-eating entertainment conglomerates into deals they loved to brag about resenting. Now, the era of the gatekeepers has arrived.
She who desires to eat by the fruits of her creative labors alone must be ready to get down like a shark and cannibalize her baby. The boy with the yo-yo must first sign his own future suicide note if he ever expects to enter the hearts and minds of the world. And the dog who plays dead must stay dead, or else be put down.
There simply is no collective desire to think or feel - provoking thought is lately considered bodily assault. So since no one wants quality paintings, music, television, movies, claymation shorts, edible arrangements, or stitchwork any longer, there is no economic imperative for the sponsorship of what-would-be-great artists; even creative folk who could never be "great" like the Doodler are crushed by insecurity, born too late to hate their sponsors. The Doodler must find employment which, in the final audit, seems to be just as useless as an artist's work, but which is cherished and fondled much more by the impatient but gentle hand of the money-go-round.
The way he grabs at himself in his sleep, he doodles at his desk - unconsciously and due to some sublimated desire to live as he thinks he might've in another time, another place, in another body, and under different laws. He can't help himself. He doodles himself to death. While he compiles work-papers and addresses review notes, he looks down and notes that an angel has visited him... it looks a little like Homer Simpson, but more often takes the form of a penguin.
So with the help of a Sharpie and a scanner (an underappreciated instrument of expression), this leakage of soul, which is flammable and diffuses throughout any and all office spaces, can be presented. Click on any of the notebooks below and see how one man tried to deal with the sadness of his pale, red-eyed, hunch-backed labor.
What do these doodles mean? Do they matter? Are they art? Hard to say, but they exist.